F1: Hamilton Completes Perfect Sunday for England in Paul Ricard

Lewis Hamilton has won the French Grand Prix for Mercedes to regain the lead in the Drivers’ Championship.

At the beginning of the race, Hamilton got a good start from Pole Position and led into Turn 1.

Behind him, Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas tried to cut off Sebastian Vettel, but the German locked up and touched his rear wheel which resulted in damage on both cars and the pair needing to make an early stop.

Behind them, further chaos ensued as several drivers took evasive action to avoid a collision with Bottas.

The subsequent actions led to Esteban Ocon picking up damage on his Force India and at Turn 3, he was collected by the Toro Rosso of fellow Frenchman Pierre Gasly.

Rӓikkӧnen then took fourth from the Spaniard at the same corner a lap later whilst Vettel had got up to 11th place when he was given a five second time penalty for causing the incident with Bottas on Lap 1.

However, this didn’t halt his progress as he overtook Nico Hulkenberg’s Renault for tenth and Perez for ninth in quick succession, before going after Grosjean in the battle over eighth position.

Back at the front, Hamilton had pulled out a gap to Verstappen of 3.8 seconds on Lap 16 and set the fastest lap of 1:36.637 to extend it.

Vettel continued to carve his way up the order and past Leclerc and Magnussen in successive laps at the Turn 8 chicane to move into sixth.

In contrast, Bottas was finding it a bit more difficult to overtake and was still outside the points in 11th.

He eventually achieved this on Lap 20, forcing Grosjean out wide at Turn 10 to take tenth place.

Vettel then moved into fifth ahead of Sainz Jr., bringing the gap between himself and race leader Hamilton down to 30 seconds.

In the midfield, Leclerc ran off the track whilst pursuing Magnussen for seventh place, which then allowed Hulkenberg to catch up and relieve the Monegasque driver of eighth place.